5G is the follow-up to the current wireless standard known as 4G or long term evolution (LTE). It is believed to be able to enable data transmission rates of more than 10 Gbps or 100 times the throughput of LTE. Basically, 5G technology consists of three separate elements—enhanced mobile broadband (1,000 times more capacity and one-tenth the latency), the Internet of Things (IOT) and other Wi-Fi based technology, and machine-to-machine (M2M) type communications.
Today's LTE networks (servers, router base station, etc.) are believed to operate from 700 MHz to 3.5 GHz. In comparison, 5G will not only co-exist with LTE, but will also operate in unlicensed or millimeter wave bands. This involves the spectrum band between 30 GHz and 300 GHz, which in turn enables more data capabilities.
Proposed next-generation technologies (5G) have higher performance requirements that cannot be achieved with many of the composite materials currently used in device production. The higher signal intensities required for 5G technologies will demand new composite materials that can maintain signal integrity (e.g. very low dielectric loss) and small circuit size (e.g. low dielectric constant) while maintaining the thermal, physical and mechanical properties desirable for PCB and other mobile devices.